January 12, 2016

Apple Watch took 52% Market Share in 2015 while all Android Watches Combined took less than 10%: Ouch!

While the iPhone 6s may not be breaking any records this quarter, new data from UK's Juniper Research shows the Apple Watch has claimed 52% of global smartwatch shipments in 2015, despite only launching at the end of April. Its popularity far eclipsed that of rival vendors, with Android Wear shipments comprising less than 10% of sales for the year.

According to the new research, Samsung's Tizen-based Gear S2 has not achieved strong sales volumes since it launched in November despite being well received. Most other smartwatch sales are currently coming from cheaper, simpler devices from a range of smaller players, such as Martian, X and Razer, the latter with the recently-announced Nabu Watch.

The report notes that "the research argues that while many smartwatch vendors have produced ranges of watches, allowing for customization and price segmentation, there have been no great leaps forward that have revolutionized the category."

It's amazing for all of the noise that Android smartwatch makers made in 2015 that their failure has been so great. A year ago, Tag Heuer's CEO Jean-Claude Biver noted that the Apple Watch "has no sex appeal. It's too feminine and looks too much like the smartwatches already on the market." He added that Apple made "some fundamental mistakes" in designing the Apple Watch. "To be totally honest, it looks like it was designed by a student in their first trimester."

If the Jupiter data is accurate, then it would appear that Tag Heuer's competing "Carrera Connected" smartwatch was simply rejected outright by tech savvy users around the globe during the holiday quarter as simply being expensive junk.

For more information, you could download the whitepaper from Juniper titled "Smartwatches: Clocking the Trend," here.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend.